City of God, City of Satan: A Biblical Theology of the Urban City

By Robert C. Linthicum

Why is the city a battleground of hostile principalities and powers? What is the mission of the church in the city? How can the church be supported in accomplishing that mission? These are the questions that Robert Linthicum treats in his comprehensive and probing biblical theology of the city. In the Bible the city is depicted both as a dwelling place of God and his people and as a center of power for Satan and his minions. The city is one primary stage on which the drama of salvation is played out. And that is no less the case at the end of this pivotal century as megacities become the focal point of most human activity and aspirations around the world. This is a timely theology of the city that weaves the theological images of the Bible and the social realities of the contemporary world into a revealing tapestry of truths about the urban experience. Its purpose is to define clearly the mission of the church in the midst of the urban realities and to support well the work of the church in the urban world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Mar 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780310877356

Robert C. Linthicum

Dr. Robert C. Linthicum is director of the Office of Urban Advance, World Vision International. He has been an urban pastor in Chicago, Rockford, Milwaukee, and Detroit, and a community organizer in most of those same cities. He is currently chair of the Urban Coordinating Council of the Presbyterian Church (USA) for Southern California. He is the author of four previous books on church and renewal topics. He holds a doctorate from San Francisco Theological Seminary and masters from both McCormick Theological Seminary and Wheaton Graduate School of Theology.

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PREFACE

The first day of the four-day urban workshop had ended, and those attending the largest gathering of evangelical pastors in the history of Bogota, Colombia, were preparing to leave. Someone had turned off the television lights; people had stopped their video and audio recorders. It was time to go home after a busy day together.

But no one was leaving! Suddenly I became aware that the workshop’s participants were all standing around the room, arms waving, voices rising, in animated conversation.

I turned to Hector Pardo, the pastor who heads the evangelical coalition in Colombia. What’s happening, Hector? I asked. Why are people staying? What is exciting them so?

Brother Bob, Hector replied, it is what you presented today. These pastors have been trying to minister in a city they can barely cope with, much less understand. What has happened today is that you have provided a way for them to biblically understand their city and their ministry in this city. And they don’t want to let this moment pass!

It has been my privilege as the director of World Vision’s Office of Urban Advance to see this scene repeated often over the past four years. Part of my responsibilities for World Vision is to lead workshops for urban pastors and Christian leaders throughout the world. Several thousand pastors from thirty-eight pivotal cities in Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United States have thus far participated in these urban workshops.

Particularly in two-thirds world countries (often referred to as the third world), pastors have insisted that the praxis of urban ministry be grounded in biblical reflection. This in turn has accelerated a long-time intention of mine to write the urban biblical theology that I had been slowly formulating over previous years. The result has been the World Vision curriculum, City of Yahweh; City of Ba’al, which I developed and have since taught in the thirty-eight cities referred to. The reactions and responses of my urban third world brothers and sisters in the faith—ranging from enthusiastic support to penetrating criticism—have in turn matured and shaped that material.

The book you are about to read is the result of that reflective interaction with third world and first world urban pastors over the past four years. But it has developed primarily out of my continuing efforts to integrate my biblical reflection and my practice of ministry as an urban pastor and community organizer over the previous twenty-five years. In that quarter of a century I had pastored churches successively in Chicago, in Milwaukee, in Rockford, Illinois, back in Chicago, and in Detroit. During the last three pastorates I had also engaged in community organizing. I will share in this book some of the events that made me realize that I needed a theology adequate to the challenge of urban ministry. But suffice it to say here that I discovered that the practical work of ministering in the midst of urban human need could not be carried on for very long without the biblical framework that would place meaning upon the city’s injustice and confusion.

It is the purpose of this study to develop from the Scriptures a systematic, internally consistent theology of the city. It is my desire to present an analysis of the city that is sociologically sound and provides a biblical explanation for the nature, extent, and structures of power in a city. In addition, this analysis will seek to present a biblical exposition of the purpose and mission of the church in the city. Finally, this study will examine biblical insights for the purpose of spiritual sustenance of God’s people in the work of the church in the city. In short, this study is an attempt to develop a biblical urban theology—a theology that seeks to be visionary in scope yet intensely practical in its applicability to urban churches and pastors.

Because World Vision has played such a significant supportive role in the development of this book, I have assigned all royalties from the book to support the Urban Advance of World Vision International in the great cities of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Of course, no theology comes solely from the person who writes it. All of us are greatly influenced by our brothers and sisters in the faith, and I am no exception. Those familiar with Walter Wink’s work on the principalities and powers and Walter Brueggeman’s work on systems and structures will note that both men have influenced my theology profoundly. So, too, has the work of community organizer Saul Alinsky, revolutionary educator Paulo Freire (Brazil), biblical scholars Segundo Galilea (Chile) and Albert Nolan (South Africa), and the servant-oriented people at Washington’s Church of the Savior—especially N. Gordon Cosby, Elizabeth O’Connor, and Don McClanen.

Some of World Vision’s best theologians have stimulated my theology of the city with their critiques and contributions. I am particularly grateful to former president Tom Houston (Scotland), vice-presidents Manfred Grellert (Brazil), Sam Kamaleson (India), and Bryant Myers, to Tom McAlpine of MARC, and to my colleague in the Office of Urban Advance, Ken Luscombe (Australia). Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t express my gratitude to Graeme Irvine (Australia), president of World Vision International, for his encouragement and to Dayton Roberts (Costa Rica), editor of MARC Publications, who urged me to convert my curriculum into this book.

Of course, I stated earlier the profound influence those who have taken the course City of Yahweh, City of Ba’al have had. Of the thousands who have shared with me in this experience, there are those whose insights, evaluations, and critiques have been particularly helpful. I want to give recognition especially to Viju Abraham (India), Mariano Avila (Mexico), Jose Borges (Brazil), Jerry Chang (Taiwan), Peter Chao (Singapore), Jose Chuquin (Colombia), Saul Cruz (Mexico), Darci Dusilek (Brazil), Michael Eastman (Great Britain), Stephen Githumbi (Kenya), Goh Eng Kee (Singapore), Winfred Jeyaraj and the other urban staff of World Vision India, Ravikant Kant (India), Vladimir Korotkov (Australia), Colin Marchant (Great Britain), Yasuo Masuda (Japan), Ruben Medina (Mexico), Joseph M’Ikunyua (Kenya), Peter Mkolesia (Malawi), Moffat Ndou (Zimbabwe), David Ngai (Hong Kong), Hector Pardo (Colombia), Kathy and Andrew Purves (United States), Zacarias Salas (Colombia), Elizabeth Steele (United States), Jim Stobaugh (United States), Ray Swartzback (United States), Sam Thanaseelan (India), and Jan Willette (United States).

Finally, my deepest appreciation and gratitude goes to my best friend, closest companion, lover and wife, Marlene, who has always been willing to share me with the church and the city and who has been prayer warrior, advocate, encourager, and my best critic for over thirty years. All these sisters and brothers in the faith from all over the world have, through their lives, ministries, and insights, helped to write City of God, City of Satan. For them all, I praise the Lord!

Robert C. Linthicum Los

Angeles, California

PART I

THE CITY: BATTLEGROUND

Chapter One

OUR CITY: GOD’S CREATION

He has set his foundation on the holy mountain;

the LORD loves the gates of Zion

more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

Glorious things are said of you, O city of God:

"I will record [Egypt] and Babylon among

those who acknowledge me—

Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush—

and will say, This one was born in Zion.’"

Indeed, of Zion it will be said,

"This one and that one were born in her,

and the Most High himself will establish her."

The LORD will write in the register of the peoples:

This one was born in Zion.

As they make music they will sing,

All my fountains are in you (Psalm 87).

THE CHALLENGE OF THE CITY

In about 19 years, the world will undergo a momentous change: for the first time in recorded history a majority of the world’s people will live in cities—primarily the cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America. These cities will be of enormous size and will be plagued by unemployment, overcrowding and disease, where services such as power, water, sanitation or refuse disposal will be strained to the breaking point.¹

So said Rafael Salas, the late executive director of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, when he spoke in Madras in 1986.

Cities all over the world are facing an unprecedented growth explosion. As Salas has indicated, sometime close to the turn of the century there will be more people living in cities than will be living in towns or villages, on farms, in tribes, or in any other human habitation. For the first time in its history, the world will be more urban than rural. Countries in the northern hemisphere will appear more urbanized than southern countries. By C.E. 2000, 94 percent of the population of Canada and the United States will live in cities, as will 82 percent of all Europeans and 80 percent of all Russians.² In contrast, only 36 percent of all Asians and 45 percent of all Africans will live in cities (Latin America provides the one third world exception—73 percent of its people will live in its cities).³

Such statistics are misleading, however. They do not reflect the tremendous number of people already concentrated in southern hemisphere cities or the tremendous growth occurring in those cities. The 36 percent of the population gathered in Asia’s cities, for example, is numerically greater than the entire combined urban population of the developed countries.

Growth in third world cities is phenomenal. It is estimated that in the years between 1975 and 2000 the increase in the urban population of Latin America will be 216 percent, of China 224 percent, of the rest of Asia 269 percent, of the Middle East 302 percent, and of Africa 347 percent.⁴

Cities in the third world are not the only ones growing. Although the cities in the developed world are growing more slowly than in the third world, their metropolitan areas continue to expand. The greater Los Angeles metropolis, for example, numbered 4,000,000 in 1950 and is now 9,500,000. By the turn of the century, its population will be nearly 14,000,000. Paris, at 5,500,000 in 1950, is projected to reach 10,000,000 by the year 2000. Although economically it appears a part of the first world, Tokyo’s growth compares with any third world metropolis. In 1950 the population was 6,700,000; by 2000 it will grow to be 23,800,000.⁵

We can best see the growth in the world’s cities in this simple fact. In 1950 only seven cities in the world had a population of more than 5,000,000. Thirty-five years later, the number of such giant cities had swollen to thirty-four. In another thirty-five years, there will be ninety-three cities on our globe with populations in excess of 5,000,000.⁶

Even more obvious is the growth in third world giant cities. Of the seven cities in 1950 with populations exceeding 5,000,000, only two were located in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. By 1985, twenty-two of the thirty-four giant cities were in the third world. By 2020 it is projected that the third world will be home to eighty of the ninety-three cities.⁷

Cities in Crisis

But what’s wrong with growth? People who have lived their lives in the first world have grown up believing in growth. But in the third world—and among the first world’s poor—growth is terrible news. Even a healthy city’s infrastructure cannot cope with a significant increase in population. And when a city like Mexico City receives more than half a million new people each year (as it presently does), its sanitation system, refuse disposal, provision of power and water, and capacity to house, feed, and employ these people is overwhelmed.

The results of such rapid and worldwide growth are evident everywhere. Fifty thousand homeless people live on New York City streets. Another 27,000 people live in temporary shelters, and an estimated 100,000 households are doubled up in apartments of friends and relatives.⁸ Sixty percent of the entire population of Guayaquil, Ecuador, lives in shantytowns amid garbage-strewn mud flats and polluted water.⁹ In Bombay, India, 1,000,000 people live in a slum built on a giant garbage dump.¹⁰

In Detroit, seventy-two percent of all the young employable adults in that city’s poorest census tract can’t find work—and will probably never find it.¹¹ Seventy-five percent of the families who live in Lagos, Nigeria, live in one-room shacks.¹² Half a million people will live their entire lives on the streets of Calcutta and will never have a roof over their heads.¹³ In Sao Paulo, Brazil, 700,000 children have been abandoned by their parents to live by their wits on its streets.¹⁴

This is the city—for God’s sake! This is the city God loves and for which Christ died. And this is the city where Christ’s church is and where it is called to minister.

Called to a City

It is incumbent upon Christians today to recognize and enthusiastically enter into the challenge of the new, emerging world. God is calling the church into the city. Our world is becoming an urban world—and this is an inevitable and irreversible trend. Only our Lord’s return or humanity’s destruction of itself in a mushroom cloud will prevent the urbanization of the world. But we are not only faced with the mind-boggling growth of the world’s existing cities—even the most rural and isolated areas of the world will be exposed to urbanization. It was apparent that a new age had dawned when, for two weeks in 1988, the entire world could sit in the stadiums and walk the streets of Seoul, Korea, because television brought the city into the home during live telecasts of the Olympics. There is no doubt that this is an increasingly urban world.

No previous generation has had to face human problems of this magnitude or had to wield urban power on this scale. This means that the church has unprecedented potential for ministry and world evangelization. The world is coming to the city—and we can be there to greet it in Christ’s name.

The most insightful of the church’s prophetic thinkers recognize the potential of the open door that no one can shut (Rev. 3:8). The church is rediscovering the city—in both the developed and the developing worlds. Emerging from that rediscovery is a profoundly new methodology for doing urban ministry—a collective wisdom evolving from theologians and urban ministry practitioners alike. New words are entering the ministry vocabulary—words like networking, urban exegesis, community organization—all symbolic of the changing style of ministry adapted to an urban world.

While we are rediscovering the city’s mission field and introducing an urban methodology, our biblical and theological reflection is limited. We enter the city equipped with an urban sociology and urban tools for ministry, but we carry with us the baggage of a theology designed in rural Europe. Even the very way we formulate theological questions and the frameworks we use to construct our theological thought have been forged from our rural past. What we are in need of is a theology as urban as our sociology and missiology—a theology, as Ray Bakke puts it, as big as the city itself!

I entered urban ministry in 1955 by working with Afro-American youth and children in a Chicago slum. I have been at it ever since. As the years passed, I became increasingly aware that my theology was inadequate for my inner-city pastorates and community organizing.

Incident after incident reminded me that I suffered from a theology gap. A theology that would be adequate for a rural world or Western culture was not adequate for the city. Manifestations of raw corporate evil, almost beyond the power even of its perpetrators to control, made nonsense of a doctrine of sin perceived as individual acts of wrongdoing. My confrontation with economic and political exploiters of the poor who were also faithful communicants in their churches made a mockery of the church as the body of Christ. My experiences increased my frustration with a theology learned in college and seminary’s halls of ivy. I will share some of those experiences with you in this book in the hope that they will aid you in reflecting on comparable incidents in your own life.

As a result of this frustration, in 1969 I began an intentional search for an urban theology that would work for me. I have been caught up in biblical research on this issue ever since; for the past eleven years I have devoted one hour a day to the task. This movable feast has gone with me throughout the world wherever I have worked. I continue to delve into Scripture to formulate a theology that realistically and accurately understands the city in all its complexity and uncovers biblical principles for ministering within that complexity.

I began my biblical research in order to bring theological sense to my city ministries. I continued it as a way of supporting my congregations and my own self in the midst of ministering to and defending the urban poor and powerless around us. This theology sustained my congregations and me, for we had become spiritually exhausted as a result of such draining and demanding ministry.

As this biblical theology gradually matured, so did my ministry and my congregations’ capacity to deal in redeeming and healing ways with both the powerful and the powerless. What both my congregations and I discovered was how relevant and how urban a book the Bible really is.

The Bible: An Urban Book

It comes as a surprise to all of us: the Bible actually is an urban book! It is hard for us to appreciate that the world of Moses and David and Daniel and Jesus was an urban world. But it was—their world was probably more urban than any civilization before it or any after it for the next fifteen hundred years.

The world in which the Bible was written was dominated by its cities. By 2000 B.C.E., Abraham’s city of Ur numbered 250,000.¹⁵ Ancient Nineveh was so large that it took three days to cross it on foot (Jonah 3:3 NRSV). Babylon at the time of Nebuchadnezzar was an amazing city with eleven miles of walls and a water and irrigation system (perhaps even including flush toilets) not equaled again until the end of the nineteenth century.¹⁶ In New Testament times Ephesus had street lighting along its famed Arcadius Street, of which Ammianus wrote, The brilliancy of the lamps at night often equaled the light of day.¹⁷ Antioch had sixteen miles of colonnaded streets. And Rome? Well, there was no city to equal Rome.

The Rome of the apostle Paul’s day numbered more than one million people—the first city in human history to exceed that number. Its streets were so crowded that wheeled traffic had to be banned from its center during the day. The rich lived in large, private mansions, the middle class in sophisticated apartment buildings. But the poor—the great mass of the residents of Rome—lived in 46,000 tenement houses, many eight to ten stories high.¹⁸ The first high-rise apartment buildings were built not in Chicago, but in ancient Rome nearly two thousand years ago!

We can begin to understand the sheer immensity of the city when we consider Lanciana’s list of public works between C.E. 312 and 315:

1,790 palaces, 926 baths, 8 commons, 30 parks and gardens, 700 public pools and 500 fountains fed by 130 reservoirs, 254 bakehouses, 290 warehouses, 37 gates, 36 marble arches, 2 circuses, 2 amphitheaters, 3 theaters, 28 libraries, 4 gladiatorial schools, 5 nautical spectacles for sea fights, 6 obelisks, 8 bridges, 19 water channels, 3,785 bronze statues and 10,000 carved figures.¹⁹

Rome, Alexandria, Athens, Corinth, Susa, Persepolis, Babylon, Nineveh, Thebes, Memphis—we can only understand the great civilizations of the Near East by appreciating the power and influence of these primary cities. These were urban civilizations, their great cities dominating the culture, art, religion, politics, economics, education, and social systems of their day.

The biblical people of God were themselves urban people. David was king of Jerusalem as well as of an empire. Isaiah and Jeremiah were both prophets committed to Jerusalem. The Scriptures tell us that Daniel was appointed mayor of the city of Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. Nehemiah was a city planner, a community organizer, and governor over Jerusalem.

Paul was Christianity’s premier evangelist to the major cities of the Roman Empire. John envisioned God’s ultimate intentions for humanity as an indescribable city. Jesus’ redemptive act of crucifixion could only happen in a city where the political power of Rome and the religious influence of the Jewish priesthood acted in concert to kill the Son of God.

Most of Paul’s letters were written to city churches as primers on how the church can effectively carry on ministry in a city. The Psalter is filled with city psalms; note how often they speak of Jerusalem or Mount Zion (Mount Zion, incidentally, is not some rural snow-capped peak; it’s the hill upon which Jerusalem was built!). Paul’s doctrine of the principalities and powers opens one up to an understanding of the nature of power in the city.

If the Bible is such an urban book, why do we not see it that way? It is simply because we approach the Bible from an essentially rural theological perspective. When we read the Bible, we are thinking country instead of city. We see what we read through rural glasses.

When the Roman Empire fell in the fifth century C.E., the Western world entered the Dark Ages—so called because the culture and knowledge of the previous seven hundred years were lost to European and Arab alike, except for those monks who preserved them in their monasteries. The population of Rome, which stood at one million at the time of Christ, fell by the fifth century to only twenty-five thousand. Yet it was still the largest city in Europe!

It was not until the twelfth century that European cities began to grow significantly. Even then they were small in comparison to biblical cities—Paris at 100,000, Florence at 45,000, Venice at 90,000.²⁰ After Rome’s decline, it would take Europe nearly thirteen hundred years to produce its next city of a million people. That would be London in 1820. (It should be pointed out, however, that during the Dark Ages the Far East continued to produce million-population cities—Changan [modern Xian] in the eighth century, Peking [Beijing] and Tokyo in the eighteenth.)

The Bible was written in an urban Near East, but the main theological formulations of the faith of the church developed in a rural Europe. Consider the formative theologians of the early, medieval, and Reformation churches: St. Paul, John of Damascus, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin. Only the first three wrote in an urban culture and from an urban perspective; their theological contributions come to us from before C.E. 400. Only Calvin, among later theologians, attempted theological formulation for an urban environment—and the Geneva of his day numbered only sixteen thousand! Not until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries did theologians consciously begin to allow city environments to influence their application of the Bible to urban life.

I discovered that, as a pastor called to serve the poor, the lost, and the churched in the city, I had to allow the scales to fall away from my eyes and begin to read the Bible as an urban book. When I did, I found a fascinating urban world there—with an urban Gospel to proclaim!

When I was a seminary student thirty years ago, I was impressed by a professor who defined theological inquiry in a way that has influenced me ever since. He said, Students, always remember that theology is a verb, not a noun! Now of course the word theology is a noun. But what the professor communicated that day was a valuable lesson: theology is primarily meant to be a process, not a product. It is faith in search of understanding.

As I have theologized about the city over these past nineteen years, what I have developed is not the final word—not even my final word. Instead, I have developed a biblical theology that serves me presently as I continue in urban ministry. Others have worked out and are creating significant urban biblical theologies for our time.²¹ But the subject of this book is the theology that works for me right now, one that has grown with me as I have matured over thirty years of city ministry. It is simply a brief pause, a moment of reflection I wish to share with you. Perhaps it will be of help as you seek to develop an urban biblical theology that will inform, support, and encourage you in your work for Christ’s kingdom.

HOW DOES SCRIPTURE VIEW MY CITY?

I believe the starting place for a Christian, when considering the city, is with the question, How does Scripture view my city? We can state the essential biblical assumption as follows:

The city is the locus of a great and continuing battle between the God of Israel and/or the church and the god of the world.

In the Old Testament the God of Israel may be called Yahweh; in the New Testament, the God of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament the god of the world may be named Baal; in the New Testament, Satan. But whether God is Yahweh or the Father of Jesus Christ, whether the Evil One is called Baal or Satan, the overarching message is the same. This world is a battlefield. The greatest battle goes on inside our cities: the battle between God and Satan.

One place in Scripture where this continuing theme surfaces is in Jeremiah 9:11-14. The Lord Yahweh says through the prophet,

"I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,

a haunt of jackals;

and I will lay waste the towns of Judah

so no one can live there."

What man is wise enough to understand this? Who has been instructed by the LORD and can explain it? Why has the land been ruined and laid waste like a desert that no one can cross?

The LORD said, It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law. Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the Baals, as their fathers taught them.

I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, God says. And for what reason? Because they have forsaken my law…they have followed the Baals. Jeremiah is in essence saying, Israel could have made Jerusalem the City of Yahweh; instead the people have allowed their city to become the city of Baal.

The continuing battle between God and Satan for control of a city is expressed throughout Scripture. But here are two particularly intriguing ways in which that battle manifests itself: the comparison drawn between the cities of Babylon and Jerusalem, and the very name the Israelites chose for their idealized city—Jerusalem. Let’s look briefly at each.

Babylon Versus Jerusalem

Babylon is used throughout Scripture as a symbol of a city fully given over to Satan. The city is first introduced in Genesis 11 in humanity’s decision to build a Tower of Babel (the Plain of Shinar, mentioned in the text as the city of the ziggurat, was later the location of Babylon). God confused their languages because the people declared, Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves (Gen. 11:4).

Babylon receives its final attention in Revelation 16 to 18, where it is portrayed as the epitome of evil, a city totally given over to evil and to the Evil One. Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and of the Abominations of the Earth (Rev. 17:5) is the city’s epitaph as every detail of it is removed from the face of the earth (see chapter 12 for a full examination of the apocalyptic end of Babylon).

In between the first and last books of the Bible, the city of Babylon is synonymous with all that is dark and evil in a city. Babylon is painted in Scripture as a bureaucratic, self-serving, and dehumanizing social system with economics geared to benefit its privileged and exploit its poor, with politics of oppression and with a religion that ignores covenant with God and deifies power and wealth (Isa. 14:5-21; Jer. 50:2-17; 51:6-10; Dan. 3:1-7; Rev. 17:1-6; 18:2-19, 24). Much of what is dark and evil in Babylon is replicated in cities (even Jerusalem) throughout the biblical story.

Jerusalem, by contrast, is seen in its idealized form as the city of God. It, too, is introduced in Genesis (14:17-24) in the figure of Melchizedek, king of Salem (Salem is a former name of Jerusalem). The entire biblical drama concludes in the last chapters of the book of Revelation with the vision of the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God (Rev. 21:2; see chapter 12 of this book for a full exploration of the new Jerusalem).

In between the beginning and the end of the Bible, an idealized Jerusalem is celebrated as city as it was meant to be—a city belonging to God. As a social system, it is called to witness to God’s shalom (Ps. 122:6-9; 147:2). As an economic entity, it is meant to practice equitable stewardship, and in its politics, a communal and just existence (Exod. 25-40; 1 Sam. 8:4, 20, among other passages. The 1 Samuel passage is an example of community action, but one that rejected God. See chapter 2 of this book for a further explanation). Finally, Jerusalem is portrayed as the spiritual center of the world, a model city living in trust and faith under the lordship of God (Isa. 8:18; Mic. 4:1; Deut. 17:14-20).

The idealized Jerusalem (which, of course, never existed) and the dark and evil Babylon are types—cities pressed to their logical extremes as a continual reminder to the biblical reader that every city includes both elements. Every city has both Babylon and Jerusalem in it, for every city is the battleground between the god of Babylon (Baal, Satan) and the God of Jerusalem (Yahweh, the Lord) for domination and control.

Babylon in Jerusalem

An even more graphic portrayal of this urban biblical theme is expressed in the etymology of the word Jerusalem. The traditional interpretation given to the name is city of peace. But biblical scholars such as Millar Burrows have pointed out that the name actually means foundation of Shalem.²² The traditional interpretation, city of peace, is etymologically unfounded.

The first references to Jerusalem in the Bible are found in Genesis 14:18 and Psalm 76:2, where it is called in Hebrew Shalem (in English, Salem). Melchizedek is referred to in Genesis 14:18 as king of Salem and priest of God Most High. In this story Abraham obviously considers Melchizedek a superior, for he receives a blessing from the priest and gives him a tithe of everything. Christians have always assumed that Melchizedek was superior because he was the conveyor of God’s peace (and thus his attributes are assigned to the city of which he was king). But there is nothing to support that contention in Scripture itself. Both in Genesis 14 and in Psalm 110 he is called simply a priest, and in the former, king of Salem.

The earliest known names for Jerusalem were Urushalim (the Egyptian Execration Texts, c. 1850 B.C.E.) or Shalem. Apparently the city received the name Jerusalem only after King David annexed it to Israel and made it his capital (2 Sam. 5:6-12).

Since the root name for Jerusalem is Urushalim or Shalem, we have to ask the question, Who or what is Shalem? Shalem was the local god of pre-Israelite Canaan. It was the god symbolized in the planet Venus, the evening star. After the Israelite conquest, Shalem was identified with the Canaanite gods Ashtar and Molech. These gods were in reality the Canaanite manifestations of the international deity—Baal.²³

Does the name Jerusalem have anything to do with peace? Obviously the Hebrew words shalem and shalom (peace) are virtually identical. Is there a relationship? Apparently there is. In the Canaanite language, the god’s name Shalem actually meant completion. This meaning evolved from the Canaanites’ perception of Shalem as Venus, the evening star—which completed the day. Therefore, as time went on and language evolved, the word shalem came to be identified with a place—Jerushalem—and with the concept of completion or fulfillment. This became the base for the later Israelite word shalom or peace.²⁴ But one should not then make the mistake of assuming that the name of David’s city was Jerushalom. It was not: It was Jerushalem.

If the city Urushalim or Shalem means foundation of Shalem, or the city of Shalem, what, then, does the prefix Je mean? It is the anglicized version of the Hebrew word Yah and thus an abbreviation for the word Yahweh! When King David conquered Jerusalem, he added the name of his and Israel’s God to the name of a city that previously had been named for the god Shalem. The name Yahweh was not substituted for the name of Shalem; it was added to it!

In the very name Jerusalem is expressed the tension of every city. It is Je-rusalem—the city of Yahweh, of God. It is Jeru-salem—the city of Baal (or Satan). Jerusalem is the city of Yahweh. Jerusalem is the city of Baal. It is a city that contains the power and influence of both forces within its walls. The very name of Israel’s primary (and idealized) city expresses the foundational urban message of the Bible. Jerusalem—and every city—is the battleground between God and Satan for domination of its people and their structures.

Yahweh and Baal

The essential Old Testament assumption about the city is that it is the battleground between Yahweh and Baal. The essential New Testament urban assumption is that the city struggles between God and Satan. If that is so, then it is important that we clearly understand the foundational beliefs about Yahweh and Baal upon which this assumption is based. Who was Baal to the ancient Israelites? Who was Yahweh?

Yahweh was Israel’s cosmic deity, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the burning bush, the God of the Exodus. The name by which God is called in the Old Testament is introduced in Exodus 3:14 as I AM WHO I AM. The third-person form of that formula (speaking grammatically) is Yahweh. But the Hebrew word cannot simply be translated He is (the English third person of I am). The actual Hebrew word has a more causal sense to it. I become what I become or I will cause to be what I will cause to be might be more accurate.

By telling Moses the holy name, God identified his essential nature. By using this name, God proclaimed that he was neither a regional deity (to be confined to one country over which God had exclusive sovereignty) or a nature deity (controlling the cycles of nature). Yahweh—by the very fact that he was named Yahweh—was the God who was sovereign over history.

As creator and controller of history, Yahweh could call a people out of Egypt and could defeat the Egyptians who would seek to resist God. Yahweh could lead his people through a barren land to give them a land flowing with milk and honey. The God who causes everything and everyone to be is the God who could liberate Israel from bondage, save them from their own worst selves, and liberate them to be God’s people.

But the God who could free could also demand. The God who could liberate a body of slaves would demand they become a nation. And the God of the Old Testament demanded of the Israelites both individual responsibility and social justice. How magnificently God’s expectations for Israel are stated by the prophet Micah: And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Mic. 6:8).

Baal was the other primary cosmic deity for much of the Old Testament era. Baal was the god of all the nations of the Near East except for Egypt (Egyptians worshiped Amon-Re) and Israel (Israelites worshiped Yahweh). Baal might have local names (e.g., Marduk, Molech) in order to express some local cultic connection. But the worship by whatever name was the worship of Baal.

The question of whether Israel’s prophets, priests, and most astute leaders believed in gods other than Yahweh remains a subject of continuing debate. But there is no question that many ordinary people as well as leaders like Kings Ahab and Manasseh did believe in other gods. The battle that occupied centuries of Israelite history was the battle best stated by the prophet Elijah: How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him (1 Kings 18:21).

Baal began, in his mythological development, as a god of fire and water and then evolved into the god of procreation. As he became a god worshiped by many nations, Baal became the god of cult prostitution and sexual license. The high places and groves against which the Israelite prophets railed were the gathering places for the worship of Baal; such worship was expressed, not through liturgy, but through public sex, both with prostitutes (priestesses of Baal) and with other worshipers, male or female. Thus Baal became a very popular god—every person’s excuse for licentiousness.

Yahweh was seen in the Old Testament as a God of covenant and responsibility. Baal was seen in the ancient Near East as the god of debauchery and license. Since their respective followers claimed their god as the only authentic cosmic deity, it was inevitable that there would be constant confrontation between Yahweh and Baal. That confrontation makes up much of the Old Testament (If Yahweh is God…). And that same confrontation underlies the Scripture’s evaluation of the city.

Because they have forsaken my law…they have followed the Baals (Jer. 9:13-14)—because you have chosen to be Jerusalem rather than Jerusalem: this is the battle of the Bible. Whether it is put in terms of Yahweh and Baal, God and Satan, or Christ and Caesar, every city is a city of conflict. It is a city of conflict between the Yahwehs and the Baals of life—between the forces of freedom and the forces of license, between the forces of justice and the forces of exploitation, between the forces of love and the forces of lust, between the forces of God and the forces of Satan.

These forces lie at the heart and soul of every city. These forces permeate every structure and system of the city—from courtroom to classroom, from politician’s podium to preacher’s pulpit. And these forces battle within every one of us, too! This is the battle of the city—the essential biblical context for understanding our city.

THE CITY AS GOD’S CREATION

At this point I suspect that the reader is beginning to ask, Is this man falling into the cult of Zoroastrianism? Is he suggesting that there are two equal forces caught up in a cosmic war—God and Satan? Is the battle of the city a battle between two equals?

No, it is not. God is Yahweh—the One who causes to be what is caused to be. Scripture repeatedly exposes us to a God who triumphs. Pharaoh, the personification of the Egyptian god Amon-Re, is forced to let God’s people go (Exod. 12:35-42). Nebuchadnezzar, the personal representative of Marduk-Baal, is forced to proclaim, Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego…for no other god can save in this way (Dan. 3:28-29). In the book of Revelation, the second Roman emperor and his cult of emperor worship are destroyed by God, and the crowds sing, Salvation and glory and power belong to our God! (Rev. 19:1). The god Amon-Re is conquered in his capital city, Rameses. The god Baal is humbled in Babylon. The ultimate Caesar is destroyed in the final and most bestial Rome. God is more powerful than Amon-Re, than Baal, than Caesar, than Satan.

Although the Bible is uncompromising in the preeminence of God, it also wants us to take sin seriously. We will not take sin seriously if we do not honestly examine it, understand it, and expose it at work within us, within our structures and systems, throughout the warp and woof of our cities, and in all its demonic capacity to possess and to seek control.

Urban ministry needs to celebrate the city! It needs to take seriously the evil in the city as well. In this section we would seek to celebrate the city. That celebration begins with the discovery that the city is an act of God’s creation just as much as is all of nature! We need to celebrate because God deeply loves the city, both because he created it and because it is his abode. Let us examine together some Scripture that will enable us to enter into the heart of God, a heart that loves the city he has created.

City Psalms

Of the 150 psalms in the Psalter, 49 are city psalms. Most, of course, deal with Jerusalem, but some deal with other cities (most notably Babylon). Most are psalms that express God’s creative love for the city. We do not have the space here to explore these psalms comprehensively, but I would like us to consider three psalms that are in one quire—Psalms 42, 46, and 48.

Psalm 42 is the lament of an Israelite in exile. It is built around the mocking question, Where is your God? Today we would answer that question, God is wherever God’s people are. But not so this Israelite. His response to the question is quite instructive to us who are seeking an urban biblical theology.

This psalmist longs for fellowship with God.

As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God? (vv. 1-2).

It is intriguing that the psalmist does not ask the question, "Where can I go to meet with God?" but "When can I go?" The psalmist knows where God

Reviews for City of God, City of Satan

[haniel31177 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Demasiado fuego. As we say in my country, "extremely powerful"! The Devil in His Kingdom will not prevail!